This year’s Christmas baking was a low key affair. We’d decided to do our baking on Friday, because we had a party to go to on Saturday and wanted to bring some baked goods with us. But then my sister got booked into a meeting all afternoon because Friday was still technically a workday and we were already scheduled to go to see Star Wars that night, so me, my mom, and my niblings just did the baking without my sister1.

I made my old stalwart, shortbread cookies from my Great Granny’s recipe that was taught to me by my Aunt Wendy:

And then I made fudge because (a) it’s easy, (b) who doesn’t love fudge?, and (c) it involves sweetened condensed milk, which means that I get to lick the lid of the can of sweetened condensed milk!

My niece made peanut butter snowballs, from a family recipe that she got from her grandfather:

My nephew made Rice Krispie squares with festive rice krispies:

My mom was the most prolific baker, as usual. She made butter tart squares:

We’d heard they go pretty all out with the lights and I have to say, they did not disappoint! We didn’t get many pictures, choosing instead to just enjoy the walk around the lake – to do it justice you really have to go see them yourself. They have lights in the shapes of birds and squirrels and flowers and maple leafs and reindeer and all sorts of other things.

We did get a photo of these cool swans floating on the lake:

And naturally I had to get my photo taken with this lit up hockey net and goalie stick1:

Anyhoo, next up will be checking out the lights at Stanley Park!

And no, this does not mean I’m going to take up playing in net. Playing defence was more than enough pressure for me! [↩]

There are only 21 days until Christmas until Christmas and I have NO IDEA what to get anyone! Eep!

I went to the New West Christmas craft market on the weekend in the hopes of finding some good gift ideas, and while there was lots of nice stuff (and tonnes of people looking at it), there was nothing that jumped out at me as a good gift idea for anyone on my list1. Also, I hate malls all the time, but I hate them with a fire of a thousand suns during the holidays, so I really don’t fancy the idea of wandering aimless around a mall looking for ideas.

Does anyone have any good gift ideas for my mother, sister, brother-in-common-law, niece, nephew, and/or friends2?

Here’s a portrait of me, right now, thinking about Christmas shopping:

Save for a couple of little items, like stocking stuffer type stuff, and something for the Secret Santa that my hockey team is doing that is unbelievably perfect for said hockey team. [↩]

True story: I started writing this blog posting earlier tonight and had “boyfriend” on that list, but before I finished writing this we decided that since we are planning a trip in the new year, that our trip will be our present to each other. Because neither of us knows what to get each other, nor do we have any idea of what we want. Other than a trip. [↩]

Early in November, my mom and sister sent me a present in the mail, but they said I couldn’t open it until December 1. So that present sat on a shelf until I put up my Christmas tree, at which time I put it under the said tree and it has been sitting there taunting me ever since then!

But finally today was the day and I got to open it! And it turned out to be…. an Advent calendar with make-up!

And today’s present was… eye shadow!

So first of all, I love the little tiny size! You actually aren’t supposed to keep makeup for very long after you open it because bacteria can get it in ruin it – but I end up keeping my make up for quite a while because packages contain so much and there’s usually so much left by the time you are supposed to through it away. With small packages, you might actually have a chance to use it all up!

Secondly, that little package has a magnet on the back, so you could actually attach all these little packages to a wall if you had a metal surface on which to attach them. I”ll havee to see what I can find – otherwise I’m going to be storing my makeup on the side of my fridge!